


even as a shadow, even as a dream

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (indelibly_ellie)



Series: between dust and despair [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bring tissues, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Gets a Hug (maybe), Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indelibly_ellie/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: Tony Stark is no stranger to grief.//Continuation of the previous work in the series, ‘memento mori’.





	even as a shadow, even as a dream

**Author's Note:**

> To all the lovely people informing me that I’m directly responsible for their tears, trust me, I cry just as much as you do while writing! XD
> 
> Also, sorry, I’m screwing with canon again! Howard and Maria died when Tony was 10, not 21. :)
> 
> Another thing- I know you guys were looking forward to some serious Tony/Steve interaction in this, but while I was writing this piece, it ended up being much longer than I thought it would so I’m splitting it into two installments, the latter of which I am still polishing up. Tony and Steve will have a minor interaction in this one, followed by a much more thorough interaction in the next part of the series. 
> 
> Honestly, it’s just been a few days so I wanted to get something up and posted for all you wonderful folks.

 

_“Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.” - Euripides_

 

* * *

 

After his parents‘ funeral, Tony remembers going back to the mansion and sneaking into his mother’s room.

 

He’d crawled into her bed, buried his face in the pillows, and breathed in the mingled scents of her shampoo and perfume. Lilies and lavender. He was still wearing the suit Jarvis had promised him she would have loved to see.

 

For the next few days, he’d repeated the same routine, over and over up until the day he realized her sheets no longer carried the smell of her.

 

He’d cried then, finally.

 

He hadn’t cried when Jarvis had broken the news to him. He hadn’t cried at the fittings for the suit he would end up wearing to their funeral instead of the opera his mother had planned for them to attend. He hadn’t even cried as he sprinkled handfuls of dirt into their graves.

 

But he’d cried then, when the smell of lilies and lavender was gone and the reality that his parents were never coming back had finally sunken in.

 

After Yinsen had died, he’d built himself armor, literally and figuratively, to keep the world at bay. He didn’t need or want anyone else ever getting close enough to see how deep his scars truly ran.

 

After Obie’s death, he’d locked himself in his lab to work for days at a time, determined to keep himself from ever being so vulnerable again, all the way up until the symptoms of palladium poisoning had become clear. Then he’d sent his life into a tailspin of inadvisable actions to compensate for the time he thought he’d never get.

 

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now, trapped in another ‘after’ where he knows people will expect him to have a plan. Strange had expected it, the cryptic bastard, had given up an infinity stone for whatever solution he expected Tony’s brain to come up with. But right now, Tony’s head just feels like the rest of him, heavy and hurting and in too much pain to properly function.

 

There’s no Peter, no Pepper, no Happy, no half of the universe.

 

3.8 billion people have just been left on Earth with nothing but dust and hollow spaces where their friends and family should be.

 

If May is still alive...

 

He narrowly resists the urge to slam his fist into the wall.

 

 _If_.

 

Tony’s spent his whole life chasing ‘if’s.

 

If May Parker is still alive, he’s going to have to be the one to tell her the last member of her family is dead. That isn’t even anything left of him to bury. That all of this is a result of the seriously flawed logic of a giant, purple, alien egomaniac who had decided to erase half of the universe’s population at random, and he’d failed to stop it from happening.

 

He’d failed to keep Peter alive.

 

There’s a small, sick part of him that hopes he won’t find her when he goes back to New York. That wherever Peter is, death or heaven or whatever, she’d ended up there too.

 

Shame burns through him at the thought.

 

 _Leave it to random probability to spare the shittiest person on the planet_ , he thinks with no small amount of bitterness bubbling up in pit of his stomach.

 

Guilt tears at him, ripping him open and leaving him bleeding out on the floor as though he’d never been healed in the first place. He drowns in it, chokes on it, wonders wildly if it’s possible to die from the weight of his regrets alone.

 

In the end, he drags himself to his feet and stumbles out into the hallway, moving towards the room he knows is Natasha’s, fueled by pure instinct and the desperate need to do something, anything, to keep himself from simply laying down and crumbling into nothing like so many others.

 

Maybe living isn’t what he deserves, but he can’t let himself go just yet. There are still debts he has to pay.

 

_Three doors down, to the left._

 

He just has to make it there and everything will be alright. Natasha will help him. Won’t she?

 

The door slides open in a matter of seconds after his knock. It jars him again, for a moment, the way almost all the color has been leeched from her hair. But her eyes are still the same.

 

The words pour out of him in rush, tumbling out of his mouth and onto the floor like a spilled glass of water before he can put them in any semblance of order.

 

“New York- I have to get to New York. Take me? Will you- please? I just- I need- I have to get to New York.” It takes him a moment to realize how hard he’s breathing, like he’s just run a marathon instead of walking a few feet to get to her room. “Please?”

 

Natasha tilts her head in response, reaching out to rest a warm hand against his cheek. She does it slowly, her motions gentle and deliberately telegraphed, soft in a way he knows Natasha rarely lets herself be.

 

“Tony, calm down.” Her gaze never wavers from his, not for a second. “You’re shaking.”

 

He doesn’t need calm right now. He needs to go to New York.

 

“Nat-“ It takes more effort than it should to speak.

 

“I’ll take you,” she soothes, lifting her other hand to wrap her fingers around his shoulder, firm. Solid. “We can take the quinjet, okay?”

 

He nods, a jerky, sudden movement that pulls his face away from her fingers. She lets her hand drop down to his other shoulder, and he finds himself relaxing under her grip. Natasha would help him. Natasha would take him to New York.

 

His panic subsides to a low thrum in his chest at her acquiescence, and the fog blurring his brain begins to dissipate.

 

“Okay.” He breathes out a long, slow breath as the tightness around his lungs eases. “Okay.”

 

After a few more seconds, some tiny part of his brain dimly notes that his body’s finally stopped trembling.

 

“We can go in the morning, okay? It’s late right now, and we’ll need authorization to open the barrier.”

 

Natasha’s right, of course. The thought of dragging Shuri out of bed at this hour, after everything, makes his gut twist.

 

 _Let her rest_ , a tiny voice in his mind agrees. _She’s been through enough for today._

 

Still, the thought of waiting sends a flicker of agitation pulsing through his veins. He should’ve thought of this earlier, realized what he’d had to do the moment the ship breached the atmosphere and gone through with it as soon as he’d woken up.

 

If May Parker was still alive, he’d just sentenced her to another several hours of fear and uncertainty for a nephew he should’ve already told her had died a hero. He’s all-too familiar with the weight of the awful dread that comes with not _knowing_.

 

“Tony?” Natasha’s tightens her grip on his shoulders, not enough to hurt, but enough to drag him back to the present, back to the hallway. “Is that okay?”

 

“Yeah.” He sighs, tilting his chin up to meet her gaze as evenly as he can. “Thank you, Natasha. For everything.”

 

_For putting up with me._

_For listening._

_For helping me, in spite of the fact that you’ve spent the last two years on the run because of me._

 

There’s a flicker of something he can’t decipher that flashes briefly in her eyes, gone too fast for him to even try.

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

Behind her, he can see the sky through her windows, inky black and dotted with stars. A tiny sliver of crescent moon, gleaming. An otherwise innocuous sight if the memory of a battle lost weren’t still playing over and over in the darker recesses of his mind.

 

The dark, gaping void inside of him gnaws away at another piece of his soul until he finally forces himself to tear his gaze away.

 

Natasha is still staring at him with those emerald eyes, luminous even in the darkness of the dimmed lights all around them. They almost seem to glow, bright with open, honest concern and he realizes that her hands are still on his shoulders.

 

He coughs up an admittedly poor attempt of a casual, nonchalant laugh and steps out from under her grip.

 

“I should, ah, let you get some rest.” He turns away before she can respond, starts moving back towards his quarters. “Good night, Natasha.”

 

“Night, Tony,” she calls out behind him, barely loud enough to be heard.

 

When he crawls back into the bed, he’s careful to keep the windows behind him.

 

* * *

  

In the morning, he prepares. Brushes his teeth, takes a shower, gets dressed, affixes the arc reactor onto his shirt. The routine settles him, somewhat. There’s still an order to the world, to the way things work, even now.

 

When there’s a knock on his door he answers it robotically, automatically, expecting one person but coming face-to-face with another.

 

“Tony.” Rhodey’s face is visibly etched with relief. “You had me worried, man.”

 

He doesn’t resist when the other man pulls him into his arms.

 

For a moment, he tastes sand in his mouth, feels the scorching heat of a desert sun on his skin. A lifetime ago, Rhodey had welcomed him back to the world of the living with an embrace just like this.

 

This time, however, he’s painfully aware that there won’t be an airport to return to, or a woman with strawberry-blonde hair who’ll insist her tears weren’t for him with a smile on her face that tells him otherwise. There won’t be a man sitting in the driver’s seat of a limo, acting as a chauffeur in spite of the fact that he’s too overqualified for the job.

 

It’s only when Rhodey releases him that he realizes he hadn’t moved to return the embrace. He’d just stood there, arms limp at his sides, frozen in place. The worried look on his best friend’s face doesn’t escape his notice.

 

“It’s good to see you, buddy.” Tony tries for a smile, but the familiar mask of the playboy billionaire is now woefully out of reach.

 

“What do you say we go get some breakfast together, hm?” Rhodey claps a hand on Tony’s back and begins to steer them down the hall. “I haven’t eaten in hours, and I could use the company.”

 

The phrasing of his invitation is clever, Tony will admit. But what else does he expect? Rhodes is more than used to coaxing Tony into taking care of himself when he otherwise would push thoughts of things like food and water to the back of his mind.

 

“Sure, Rhodey.” It doesn’t even feel like he’s the one moving his own lips anymore, but Tony has always been good at figuring out what others want to hear. “I could always use some coffee.”

 

When they get close enough to the kitchen for Tony to hear gut-wrenchingly familiar voices, it’s too late for him to back out. As if sensing his train of thought, Rhodey’s arm around his shoulder tightens. The gesture is comforting, even if it keeps him from running away and retreating back to his room.

 

“It’s fine, Tones. Just the team.”

 

 _What’s left of it_ , thinks Tony, and something inside him fractures just a little more.

 

He keeps his gaze trained on the floor as Rhodey ushers him inside. It’s almost irrationally childish, but maybe, if he tries hard enough, he’ll go unnoticed.

 

“Tony!”

 

No such luck.

 

He looks up just in time to see Bruce clamber awkwardly out of his chair and walk towards him. Behind him, the rest of the team is scattered around the room, some sitting at the table, some standing around the kitchen island. Natasha’s perched on the countertops, Steve standing by her side. Thor is at the table, next to an armed raccoon he can only assume is Rocket. He’s glad Natasha warned him about that the day before, otherwise he might actually wonder how solid his grip on reality really is right now.

 

The only person’s eyes he can stand to meet is Nebula’s, standing in a corner of the room with her arms folded across her chest. He knows he won’t find anything like pity or concern there.

 

“Hey, Bruce.” He makes it a point to react when the other man reaches for him, return the embrace and clap him on the shoulder before he lets go. The look on Bruce’s face when he pulls away is almost expectant. He doesn’t know what else to say.

 

‘ _I’m glad you aren’t dead_ ’? ‘ _At least the end of the world didn’t take you too_ ’?

 

His skin feels tight, like his body’s too small to hold everything inside it. Like he’s moments away from splitting open into a broken, bleeding mess of raw, exposed nerves on the clean kitchen tiles.

 

It’s Nebula who saves him, again.

 

“Terran,” she calls out. “Are you ready to begin our hunt?”

 

All heads in the room swivel around to focus on her.

 

“Hunt?” Steve’s voice sends a pang of- of _something_ \- through his veins. “What are you talking about?”

 

“For Thanos.” The smile that stretches across her face is a promise of blood, a promise of _pain_. Tony shivers, glad that everyone’s attention is too focused on her to see it. “He must die.”

 

“Count me in,” growls Rocket, standing up in his seat.

 

Natasha frowns.

 

“Now,” she says, sliding off of the counter and onto the floor in a neat, fluid motion, “Let’s hit ‘pause’ for a second, shall we? Nebula, I understand you’re eager, but we need to take our time with this. The people of our planet are still reeling from what happened yesterday.”

 

“Your planet is too green,” Nebula spits back, her words carrying an undercurrent that, it seems, only Rocket understands. The raccoon almost seems to wilt in place, and Tony finds himself doubting that the use of ‘green’ is idiomatic. “Besides, I don’t need your people. I only need him.”

 

He watches as Steve starts to take a step forward, but Natasha wraps a hand around his arm and drags the supersoldier to a stop before he can get closer to Nebula’s corner of the room.

 

“I get that you’re angry, but we need time,” she says, and Tony recognizes the calm in her voice for what it is- a quiet, nuanced threat. “Tony needs time. Thanos isn’t going anywhere. We’ll hunt him together as soon as we make sure our world is stable. In the meantime, you can stay here, make preparations. Plan.”

 

Nebula goes almost unnaturally still after she turns her head to regard Tony with those unsettlingly dark eyes.

 

Then she shrugs, and some of the tension begins to seep out of the room.

 

“That sounds agreeable,” she says, slouching back against the wall. She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at Natasha like she’s seen something interesting in the other woman. “Will you join us?”

 

Natasha’s gaze sweeps across the room, and it makes Tony all the more aware of all the empty spaces there are between them.

 

“I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say we all will.”

 

Nebula’s smile returns, all sharp edges. “Good.”

 

Thor clears his throat, moving to stand up from his seat at the table. “In that case, we should go see to the ship. Nebula, rabbit, would you accompany me?”

 

Tony watches them leave. He’s seen a lot of things, but an angry, gun-wielding raccoon stomping out of the kitchen muttering under his breath is still something that makes him pause. Especially with a blue alien and a thunder god in tow.

 

“I think I’ll go too,” Bruce says, “There’s still some cleanup to be done in the field. Colonel?”

 

“Sure.” Rhodey pats him on the shoulder one last time. “You okay to eat without me, Tony?”

 

Tony resists the very sudden, very real urge to run. Why is everyone so intent on leaving him alone with-

 

He stops, mentally shakes himself, and focuses his gaze on the far wall.

 

 _Natasha’s still here_ , chirps a tiny voice in the back of his brain. _She’s taking you to New York. Everything will be fine._

 

He forces himself to look back towards Rhodey and smile. “Yeah, Rhodey. I’ll be okay.”

 

And then they’re gone, leaving him alone with Natasha and Steve.

 

“Coffee, Tony?” Natasha’s already pouring a cup. “Sit, I’ll bring it over.”

 

He moves to take one of the vacated seats at the table woodenly, every movement bringing him closer and closer to the one person in the world he’s still not sure how to talk to.

 

It’s stupid of him, really. Just a day ago he’d been prepared to make that call.

 

But that was before. Before Peter. Before Bucky.

 

Another person he’d failed to save.

 

They had been so close- _the gauntlet was almost off-_

 

A steaming mug of coffee slides into view.

 

He looks up in time to see Nat slide into the chair across the table from his, a mug of her own still in hand.

 

“Thanks, Nat.” He wraps his fingers around the ceramic, relishing the warmth that sleeps into his skin. He’s still so cold. He doesn’t know why.

 

In the periphery of his vision, Steve lingers by the kitchen island, nursing his own drink in silence. Behind him is the stove, where a still-steaming kettle sits.

 

 _Probably for Bruce_ , he thinks. Bruce always liked tea.

 

He wonders what it would be like to place his hands on the grill of a lit stove, wonders if that would be enough to chase the chill from his bones.

 

 _Do it_ , purrs a voice from one of the jagged crevices in his chest, smooth and silky-sweet. _Burn_.

 

“Tony?”Natasha tracks his gaze to the kettle. “Do you want tea instead?”

 

“No.” He tightens his fingers around the mug and lowers his gaze to the table. “Coffee’s fine.”

 

“Right. Well, I already spoke to Shuri this morning and she says we’re clear to leave whenever you’d like.” She shifts in her seat. “If it’s okay with you, I told Rogers he could come along, stretch his legs.”

 

“It’s not that kind of trip,” he mutters back, fully aware of the way his skin prickles under the weight of Steve’s gaze. “I’m going to Queens. To see May Par- Parker.”

 

He hates himself just a little bit more for stumbling over her last name. Peter’s last name, too.

 

“I have to tell her about Peter,” he finishes lowly, hunching into himself.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Steve take a step towards the table. He tries not to flinch. Part of him is still angry about the deceit. Still remembers the pain of breathing with a cracked sternum, the line of bruises stretched out across his chest for weeks afterward in a slightly curved shape that would match the edge of a shield. Still remembers how heavy a suit without power suddenly becomes, like he’s trapped in a coffin specially designed for him.

 

But that flicker of anger feels infinitesimal in comparison to the guilt that cycles through his bloodstream with every beat of his slowly breaking heart.

 

“You can come,” he blurts, pushing his chair away from the table and standing. His pulse hammers in his chest, loud enough to make the world seem muffled to his ears. “It’s fine.”

 

“Tony-“ Steve’s holding a hand out towards him, like maybe he wants to make Tony stop retreating, like maybe he wants to hold Tony in place so they can finally talk, _really_ talk, for the first time in two years. But the risk that he’ll only end up pushing him away again is too great for Tony to ignore.

 

He stumbles backwards towards the doorway. Natasha looks like she wants to reach out to him too. She shouldn’t. Everything he touches turns to ruin. He doesn’t dare look back towards Steve.

 

“I have to get ready.”

 

Then he turns and _~~runs~~_ walks down the hall and back to his room.

**Author's Note:**

> If you feel personally victimized by Marvel, clap your hands! 
> 
> Or leave a review! ;)
> 
> Tony/Nat is still my brOTP. She’s a master spy, y’all, and this is the end of the world. Out of everyone, I think she truly understands how it feels to be in Tony’s shoes. It’s why she treats him the way that she does, in spite of everything that happened because of the Accords. She can see how much pain he’s in and her response is to do her best to try to neutralize the situation, diffuse his anxiety. She can see how close he is to breaking, and she wants to do her best to keep him intact. 
> 
> Nebula is still 110% focused on her goal, though. My girl is nothing if not determined. She agreed to take it down a notch because she recognizes Natasha is right, and she’ll take all the extra firepower she can get. But she’s still intent on murdering that evil, sentient jolly rancher.
> 
> I know this one was pretty sad, but I will admit that I cried multiple times while writing the next installment, so, uh...
> 
> Subscribe and keep an eye out for the next piece, where three of our faves go to New York! Who knows what angst will ensue... :)
> 
> Leave a comment, hug a smol bean insecure bby mechanic who deserves all the love and coffee in the world.
> 
> EDIT: I’ve been getting some people telling me that the Steve/Tony pairing is not what they would have chosen for this, so I’m honesty, genuinely curious- were I to change the pairing (hypothetically), or write other fics for this fandom, what pairing would you want to see?


End file.
